>> Saturday, March 12, 2016

PERRYSCOPE
Perry Diaz

With
Election Day just two months away, campaigning is heating up particularly in
the vice presidential contest. Indeed, never in the history of
Philippine politics had there been more campaign propaganda used and resources
spent to elect the vice president of the country, which makes one wonder: why
the sudden interest in a job that does nothing but run errands for the
president and attend funerals of deceased VIPs, weddings of political allies,
christenings of rich dynasts, and the likes. Pretty boring, isn’t
it?

And the specter
of Bongbong ascending to the presidency, if he were elected as Miriam’s
second-in-command, is causing a lot of displeasure – and anxiety -- to a lot of
people, particularly those who had suffered during the martial law regime of
Bongbong’s father, Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.

But the young
Marcos claimed that his father did a lot of good things for the people and the
country and that there was no reason for him to apologize. And by
highlighting the positive accomplishments of his father and ignoring the
negatives, Bongbong has convinced the young “millennials” – those who weren’t
around during the martial law years – to give him their support in his quest to
regain the presidency that his father lost during the 1986 people power
revolution.

With Bongbong’s
popularity now at par with the leading vice presidential candidate Sen. Francis
“Chiz” Escudero, the opposition is now in panic mode. The
anti-Bongbong attacks have begun!

Sin of the
father

Last February
26, it was reported in the news that Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who is running
for vice president as Gov. Rodrigo Duterte’s running mate, had told the media
at a rally in Cebu City, “The sin of the father is not the sin of the
son. If the father did something wrong, the son should not be blamed
for it.” However, he added, “But if the son is involved in spiriting away billions
of dollars in ill-gotten wealth that the government is trying to recover,
that’s another story.” He then demanded that Bongbong should
return the wealth that his family had allegedly stolen from the country during
the two decades they were in power and that he should apologize for his role in
concealing the ill-gotten wealth. He added: “The Marcoses inherited
the money so for me what is more important than saying ‘sorry’ is their
returning the wealth that they allegedly stole from the nation.”

Marcos loot

Cayetano then
made references to “Operation Big Bird,” which was initiated in 1986 by retired
Gen. Jose Almonte and banker Michael de Guzman to recover $213 million (others
estimated it at $356 million) in ill-gotten wealth that the Marcoses had
allegedly stashed in Swiss banks. But “Operation Big Bird” failed
because it wasn’t approved by the administration of then President Cory
Aquino. Was there a secret deal? Hmm…

It was estimated
that the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth was valued at $10 billion. According
to the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was created in
1986 to recover the Marcos loot, only $4 billion was recovered and turned over
to the national treasury. Where is the rest of the loot?

But the question
remains unanswered today. Instead, what we’re hearing now is a
revisionist version of the Marcos years. “What am I to say sorry
[for]?’ Bongbong said during a television interview in August
2015. Instead he glowingly boasted about his father’s
achievements, to wit: (1) He built thousands of kilometers of road, (2)
Literacy is one of the highest in Asia [but this was true since the American
colonial era], and (3) The country was an exporter of rice, not an importer as
it is now.

Comeback

In 1991, the Marcoses
returned from exile after President Aquino lifted a ban on their return,
saying their presence was no longer a threat to national
security.

Today, the
Marcoses are back in power. Imelda is now a congresswoman
representing her husband’s old congressional district in Ilocos
Norte. Her eldest daughter, Imee Marcos, is the governor of Ilocos
Norte, and Bongbong, who was elected Senator in 2010, is now running for vice
president. And if he wins, he’d be in an advantageous position to
win the presidency in 2022.

In my
article, “Bongbong’s gambit” (October 30, 2015), I
wrote: “It is apparent that Bongbong – from a regional/language
standpoint – has a built-in advantage over his rivals. And his
chances are further enhanced because four of the [vice presidential] candidates
– Robredo, Escudero, Honasan, and Trillanes – have roots in the Bicol region,
which could divide the Bicolano Vote among them. Cayetano is in a
position to capture the Tagalog Vote and the huge Metro Manila Vote; however,
Metro Manila is not as clannish as the Ilocano Vote and Bicolano Vote.

“Bongbong enjoys
the clannishness of the Ilocanos and by extension the Solid North, which was
the bailiwick of his father. The question is: Would Bongbong be able
to get the support his father got from Ilocanos? And would
Bongbong be able to communicate with Ilocanos in their native language just
like how Marcos Sr. did with his mastery and eloquence of the Ilocano
language?”

Waiting game

Surmise it to
say, Bongbong must have decided against running for president because he was
not sure if his electoral base was large enough to clinch the
presidency.

But at age 58,
Bongbong must have thought that waiting for another six years would give him
time to solidify a national following. Indeed, the vice presidency
would provide him the stepping-stone to reach his ultimate
goal. He’d be 64 years old in 2022 and it would have been 36 years
after the EDSA People Power Revolution that deposed his father. By
that time, the millennials would have grown larger in number while the older
generation who lived the “dark” years of martial law would have dwindled in
number.

But Bongbong is
not the only one waiting. Others – and their number is growing – are
also waiting for him: that is, to stop him from achieving his dream of
following the footsteps of his father.

Last February
24, during the 30th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution, the
Anti-Bongbong Coalition (ABC) was launched in Cebu City. In a press
conference, the lead convenor of ABC said, “Bongbong was equally liable
since he benefitted from his family’s alleged stolen wealth. He
benefitted from the excesses of the dictatorship. The Marcos loot
helped him live like a Marcos prince after the EDSA [revolution] and rebuild
his political career.”

At this time,
with only two months to campaign, the ABC has to go into overdrive to
accomplish its mission of stopping Bongbong, which begs the question: How
strong is it? And can Bongbong survive the ABC? (PerryDiaz@gmail.com)